


The Divide

by ParadoxR



Category: Stargate (1994), Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Beginnings, Episode: s01e04 Emancipation, Episode: s01e05 The Broca Divide, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-02-23 00:12:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13178214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadoxR/pseuds/ParadoxR
Summary: Jack fidgets apprehensively. “But, Captain, you know I would never—”“I don’t know anything about you.” Sam stares stiffly at the darkened monitor until they all have to give up and leave.





	1. Something Shatters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bethanyactually](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethanyactually/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rated the same as the TV show for mature themes. Canon compliant up through Emancipation.

Sam pushes a finger against her earplug as Doctor Lee’s simulator screeches rhythmically yet again. It’s probably music to something’s ears, but her entire staff is sick of it and still has no idea what it means. She bends in closer and refuses to watch the clock tick away what’s left of her solitary leave.

Sam pulls off her mask and tweaks a knob as the light stops strobing. Not that it will change anything. She won’t be the one who figures this out—it’s not even close to her expertise. She’s usually too impatient for this kind of painstaking experimentalism at all. But her mind hasn’t managed to stop swirling lately. The methodicalness helps.

She tries to shake the noise from her head and picks up a supplemental crystal to insert.

A shift behind her sends a shiver down Sam’s spine. It’s just enough time to flinch before a full collision flattens her onto the table. Something shatters. Pain rushes through her thighs as they’re wrenched apart from under her. This thing isn’t trying to kill her.

Yet.

Glass breaks. Sam bites the hand muzzling her mouth. The answer is the thud of her head against the desk. Haunting sounds of a Mongol warlord grunt on her skin.

Sam gropes in the dim light along the cold plane of the desk. Something sharp slices between her fingers.

Warmth dribbles across her knuckles as she grabs it. Her body struggles to trick the force crushing her sternum.

And freezes. Through the cloud of torn dresses and Mongol groans, she knows that voice. She knows that smell.

Sam bites the hand again. “Sir!!”

Her jaw smashes on the table.

The shock jars her teeth, taking her back to the last time someone did that.

She stabs. Fist grip, point down. Nondominant hand. Rotate in. Groin crease. Attack angle nine. Twist on extract. Her hand has done it ten thousand times since joining Project Giza.

This time should be lethal.

Colonel O’Neill howls at the pain and throws her across the room. Her head collides with something sharp.

 

ROLL TITLES


	2. Believe No One

Sam’s head rolls away from the light despite knowing better. You don’t move until you know where you are. You never move. Colonel O’Neill is going to kill her.

But the light is still so sharp. Colonel O’Neill is going to kill her.

Her eyes bolt open. He’s going to kill her. Sam rolls out of bed and collapses next to it. Bed. Get away from the bed.

Something clamps on her from behind. “Easy, Sam.”

Her head screams out as her training takes over. Rear headbutt. Break nose. Why isn’t he dead yet? She needs him dead, right?

“Sam!”

Her head thuds on his dizzily.

She roars in response.

“Captain Carter! Come on, Sam!”

She breaks an arm free. No, no. Not him too. Him she can beat. She wrenches around smashes a fist into Daniel’s glasses. On the floor of the infirmary. With twelve people hovering.

Sam squints at her grip around the archaeologist's neck. An IV stand crashes down on top of them. This can’t be right.

Daniel mouths breathlessly under her grip. “Sam?”

She blinks and releases him. “Yeah.”

Hands swoop in immediately to lift her back over the bed rail and stem the blood flowing from her IV line. She squirms.

Daniel stands to put a hand on her shoulder. “Rough morning, huh?”

Sam’s head whips around painfully. “ _Rough morning?_ ” Her voice rasps.

Her friend’s brow furrows over his swelling eye. “Well…I mean I guess we’ve had worse than a steel bookcase falling on your head. But on your day off it should count for something, right?” Daniel tries to chuckle. “Doc Warner says I can spring you for a bit once you’re off the IV. You feel okay?”

Sam’s mind flashes back involuntarily. “ _No_!” She shoves at the air in front of him.

Daniel looks back at the nurses. “Uh, Docs?” He tries to stay but they crowd him out impatiently.

Sam writhes as someone messes with her bandaged stomach. The nurse smiles handsomely.

“No, no, no.” She pulls away from the assault and smacks her knees into General Hammond. “Sir!”

The general holds up a steadying hand. “Please calm down, Captain. We need to know how this happened. Colonel O’Neill is hurt as well.”

Sam stares back at his stars dumbly. “How it happened?”

“The explosion, just now.” Hammond leans down to her eye level. “Colonel O’Neill caught some shrapnel. That’s what happened, correct? Do you know how?”

Sam’s mind clears in a cold flash. “It wasn’t shrapnel. I stabbed him.”

Hammond’s eyebrows climb. “You what?”

“Who what?” A plodding sound confirms that someone else heard that.

Sam’s heart rate jumps. He’s like a ghost.

Jack uses his crutch to poke back the open curtain. He’s a little dizzy, but he stubbornly ignores the wheelchair being rolled along behind him.

Sam swallows. They’ve fenced her in, them and the railing and these IV lines. She’s stuck on a bed.

Hammond frowns worriedly and calls over his shoulder. “Colonel, why don’t you close the curtain?”

Sam gulps. Jack doesn’t move. Colonel Makepeace steps in and slides it closed around them and Doctor Warner, who ushers the nurses out.

Sam can’t breathe.

Hammond takes a seat calmly. “Captain, can you explain that? You accidentally stabbed Colonel O’Neill with Doctor Lee’s replica crystal?”

Jack’s eyebrows jump, but he doesn’t object as he lowers stiffly into a chair.

Sam slides as far back on the bed as it goes. “I…it wasn’t an accident.”

The general’s brow drops. “Captain, you understand that all statements you make could be—”

“It wasn’t a crime.” Her breath comes in sharp puffs. “He assaulted me!”

The mood shifts again, to confusion and then back to concern. Jack leans forward in his chair. “Captain. Sam, if I alarmed you, I—”

“ _Alarmed_ me? Look at me!” She gestures wildly at her far-too-thin gown.

Doctor Warner clears his throat uncomfortably. “Captain, your injuries show no clear signs of assault. You were thrown, at least when the bookshelf collapsed. That was clearly a traumatic event.”

Sam’s hands fist. “He _assaulted_ me. You nearly killed me!” She wraps further into a ball on top of her pillow. “It’s fine. I’ll wait for the security footage.”

The men exchange meaningful looks. Makepeace steps out of the curtain.

Hammond rubs a hand over his strained features. “Captain, the camera doesn’t…” He lets a breath out and waits for Makepeace to wheel in the television cart.

Sam stares at the video. They play it again. And again. “That’s…but you can’t tell…” She feels the tears welling as the image of Colonel O’Neill disappears behind a bookshelf until it wobbles and collapses. Over and over again. She finally deflates. “Nothing looks…”

“Sam.” Jack breathes in quietly after a long silence. “Flashbacks, I mean they’re nothing to be…”

“ _Flashbacks?_ ” She jerks up angrily.

Jack continues. “It’s not a sign of weakness.”

“You, you—after everything you did—” Sam sets her jaw again and spins to General Hammond. “I _know_ what happened behind there. I was there!”

Jack watches the pained objection. “Captain…Sam, you can’t really think. You know me, I would never—”

“I don’t know anything about you.” She stares stiffly at the darkened television screen.

Jack flinches.

Hammond inhales deeply. “Doctor Warner, can Captain Carter be discharged?”

Warner breathes. “She’s ambulatory. But, General…” He trails off meaningfully.

Hammond turns away, hiding a grimace. “Captain, you’re still on leave. Why don’t you take that at home for a while?”

“Me?!” Sam’s eyes widen. “What about him?!”

Hammond nods. “Colonel O’Neill will be relieved during the investigation. Stay here, Colonel. And keep yourself in good company.”

“He gets to stay and _I_ have to leave?” Sam clutches the bed rail with white knuckles.

Colonel Makepeace cuts in before Hammond can respond. “I’m not so sure about that either, General.”

Sam squints at her unlikely ally.

Jack doesn’t control his grimace. “Rob, you can’t actually think…”

The Marine raises a self-righteous eyebrow. “Maybe. But you’d know no one would believe her, wouldn’t you?”

Jack scowls. He doesn’t mind low-blow politics, but not with Carter’s sanity. “Let’s talk about this _later_?”

Makepeace holds his eyes for too long. “She can’t go home, General, you know that. This happens again she could stab someone on the bus, or the guy behind her in the checkout line.”

“You just said you believed me!” Sam’s face breaks in exhaustion.

The Marine commander answers starkly. “At the moment, Captain, I intend to _believe_ no one. Except you, Doctor.” He turns to Warner. “I assume you agree she’s a danger to herself and others.”

Sam deflates against her polyester cage. This can’t be happening. She was a perfectly fine combatant officer twenty minutes ago.

Warner looks over his patient uncomfortably. “I…could agree to house confinement with frequent supervision. There’s some risk, but psychologically it’s far better than the alternative.”

“A padded cell?” Sam grinds her teeth. “I’m not crazy.”

Jack breathes between the hands covering his face. “No one thinks you’re crazy, Sam.”

She scowls and pretends to ignore him until they all give up and leave.


	3. Can’t Help You

“But just—”

“No.”

“Just listen—”

“I _did_ listen, Jack.” Makepeace huffs. “And I’m not going to talk about it here. Unless you have something you didn’t last week, I have an interstellar war to run. Maybe make yourself useful somehow.”

“Rob, you know if I’m right…” Jack body blocks him painfully.

“Yes.” The Marine sets his jaw. “And I know that unless there’s another test to run, I can’t help you. You need move on, Jack. The rest of us are still at war. The one _you_ started.”

Jack takes that to the sore spot in his gut. “Just one other volunteer.”

“Not happening.” Makepeace scowls at his fellow colonel. “You remember what happened the last time that kind of panic took hold?” He shakes his head and stalks out of the room.

Jack jerks away and starts pacing around his office again. He needs to get the stiffness out of this leg. It still hurts like the devil, but it could’ve been much worse. She could’ve killed him. His own 2IC, who he kept on this job against everyone’s better judgment. She could have bled him dry on the floor of some geek lab.

And he’d have deserved it.

Not for hurting her, of course. He’d never do that. But for everything he did do. For keeping her here, for putting her in this position.

For getting her abducted and sold as a sex slave.

It’s hard to counter that one. She really should have killed him.

Jack massages his thigh again and slumps into his chair at the pain. He grabs a stack of papers from the inbox. It’s nothing of immediate importance, of course. He’s not even getting memos addressed to him. He thumbs through the stack of professional journals his aide pulled out.

_Dynamic Inter-Dimensionality as a Revolution in Military Theory._

Jack sighs. Later. He tosses it away and lets it hit the lamp on his desk.

_Operational Leadership Challenges in Emergency Humanitarian Assistance Operations._

The colonel’s mind flashes across decades of incidents in a dozen time zones and galactic quadrants. He lets it join _Dynamic Inter-Dimensionality_ in a pile by the now-flickering lightbulb.

_The Changing Nature of External Threats, Economic and Political Imperatives, and Seamless Logistics._

Ugh.

_Joint Forces’ Black Lights: Chaos, Complexity, and the Promise of Information Warfare._

He makes a face but sets it too gently atop the ‘Carter’ pile that’s precariously threatening to spill over his whole desk.

 _Nonlethal Technology and Fourth Epoch War: A New Paradigm of Politico-Military Force._ He gets a little less gentle about placing it there. _Technologies, Doctrine, and Organization for a Revolution in Military Affairs._ Thwap.

Jack growls loudly as the entire stack of paper avalanches over all his other messes.

The shadow of a man in his doorway flinches.

“What are you looking at?!” The colonel chucks his pen down and lashes out at his jerk of a security babysitter.

Who’s really just a twenty-year-old kid trying to do his job.

“Never mind.” Jack sighs. “Just…forget it. You bored? Let’s go.” The colonel lurches to his feet by way of apology. Not that he has much of anywhere to go—it’s not like he can check in on the mission planning rooms or drop in on a training exercise.

 

Jack winds his way to the main gym and lets his escort go in the busy space. “Enjoy. We’ll be here a while.” As if ‘out of sight, out of mind’ works in front of thirty guys whose colonel needs an armed babysitter.

Jack churns through a couple dozen pullups before moseying over to the person he’d picked out on the way in. “Heya, Sergeant.”

“G’morning, Colonel.” The Delta Force linguist leans away subtly.

“How’d you get that?” Jack gestures to the bruise around commando’s cheek.

The sergeant shrugs awkwardly as he loads on a barbell plate. “Smoking and joking outside O’Malley’s, sir. You know how it is.”

Jack continues studying him carefully. “You remember who gave it to you?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if I gave it to myself on a lamppost, sir.” He tries to laugh it off.

The colonel stares some more before giving up with a sigh. “Have a good day, Sergeant.”

The linguist lets out a relieved breath and starts his bench presses. “You too, sir.”

His spotter needles him quietly after the first rep. “Told you he was gonna ask.” They murmur to each other.

Jack pretends to ignore it.

A senior combat controller jogs up next to him. “Hey, Jack. Have you thought any more about—”

“No.” Jack puffs loudly.

“—Because really all I’m looking for is—”

“ _Not now,_  Sergeant.”

The commando sighs. “Yes, sir.”

Jack stalks past the sergeant and another guy who starts yet another conversation behind his back.

“I don’t know why you keep asking him.”

“For a Special Forces engineer from Berkley? Ayman is already ten times more qualified than she’d ever be.”

“Which I’m pretty sure is why she’s the only one working for a guy who got out of the stockade in February.”

The commando’s aggravated shadow dances across Jack’s back. “But it’s the only slot open.”

Jack finally spins around. “IT’S NOT OPEN!” He gestures wildly before needing to catch his balance and realizing he’s making another scene. “I wish him best of luck. I hope we find him something.” The colonel stalks to the door and calls for his babysitter. The poor kid hurriedly sets a barbell back on its squat rack and scrambles to catch up. Jack waits. The guy really deserves a beer when all this is over. Or when he turns legal. Whichever is later.

 

Jack wanders the halls stiffly but isn’t at all surprised at where he ends up. He a runs a palm over the cold of the door. “Give me a minute, huh?”

The kid positions himself silently outside Captain Carter’s lab.

Jack lets the door close behind him and then leans against it. It’s a nice place. He’d really started to like it in here. He doesn’t now, but he really could have.

And it’s a good lab. The senior command room on the floor. Not in terms of geekiness or doohickies or anything—Carter could never hack it as a real experimentalist; she’s barely patient enough for whiteboard doodling. But it has its perks.

Jack breathes in the dusty air. It looks so empty now. He’s pacing again. He stops fidgeting with a photograph long enough to dust off the crappy radio. It whines for a while until he gets it to play the opera CD he gave her.

Then he hauls his bandaged ass over a table and pulls himself quietly through the access hatch and up the ladder.

Command rooms do have their perks.


	4. Come Back

_Chaos, Complexity, and the Promise of Information Warfare._ Sam thumbs a bandaged hand through her dogeared _Joint Force Quarterly_ and then chucks it on the floor by her couch. Maybe later.

Not that she’s doing anything right now.

Sam scrubs at her matted hair and falls back on the cushions. She’s disgusting from an ill-conceived third of her two-a-day workouts, but she’s not ready to shower. Not that she’s paranoid.

She runs another function check on her Colt 45 pistol.

Sam will shower when Doc Fraiser comes back to babysit her more. Not that a five-foot-two medical officer inspires a lot of confidence in terms of marksmanship. Sam really ought to get a dog. You never know who’ll to show up at the front gate.

The doorbell echoes around her living room. Sam has her pistol at high ready before even realizing she’s crouched behind the table like it’s a DHD fighting position.

This is happening a lot lately, especially with the newer training. Reaction without thinking. Real amateur stuff. The kind of overreaction meant for rookie riflemen or downed pilot trainees. Like breaking ranks without communicating, or…

…Or jamming a full Attack Angle Nine reverse grip rear thrust into the femoral artery of a situation you don’t properly understand.

Concentrate.

She’s to the door now. Actually she’s stacked against the doorframe like she’s ready to breach a Main Ha’tak Control Room. Fraiser would’ve announced herself by now. The doc knows better.

Sam waits a little longer a stacked against the doorframe. It’s a comfort thing. Makes her feel in control.

She needs to feel in control.

But she checks again that the safeties of her Colt are engaged. The last thing she needs right now is a negligent firearm discharge. Special operators don’t get to be special by being good with guns and everything else. They’re special because they _think_ through everything before they do anything and still do everything faster and better than everyone else can do anything.

Concentrate.

Sam concentrates on the controlled breathing of an expert marksman for a full ten seconds. “Who is it?”

“It’s me.”

Her blood pressure spikes. One thumb rubs subconsciously over its safety lever. “You are currently interfering with an ongoing investigation.”

Jack nods into the far side of the door. “Yeah. Plus I ditched my guard, climbed nineteen-stories on a rusted ladder and a bum leg, snuck out the base perimeter, lost four teams of Security Forces over twenty-five klicks to and through Beaver Creek, and then paid ninety bucks and a cleaning fee for the cab ride back here to be a drowned rat on your sidewalk. I’m in plenty of trouble.”

Sam shudders involuntarily at his confidence. “What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you about this. It’s important.” His voice muffles somewhat.

Sam hides her pistol and jerks open the door to prove she’s not afraid. She keeps the chain on.

“I brought that for you.” Jack gestures to her stoop from where he’s taken a seat on her sidewalk.

Sam holds her bandaged head enough to look down at the knife on her doormat.

“It’s mine, from Iran. Sharpened. That’s what went wrong, by the way. You stabbed me with the duller end of the shard.” He splays his legs out in front of her. “I want you to feel comfortable. Can you come out and not shout for your neighbors?”

Sam looks down at the knife through gritted teeth. He knows her, though. She’s too curious for her own good when it comes to these things. She grabs the knife by its sheath and stalks to within three feet of him. “So now you’re going to convince me I’m crazy?” Try to convince her. She meant try.

“You’re not crazy.” Jack breathes out unsteadily. “I believe you.”

“You _what_?”

“I do. It’s…” Jack pauses and takes a breath. “Everyone thinks you’re…crazy…for thinking this happened. But maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s _me_.”

Sam’s teeth grit. “ _That’s_ what you’re going with? Not guilty by reason of insanity?!” Suddenly she needs to kick him. He’s just sitting there in front of her. There’s blood spotting the bandage under his gym shorts. He looks so vulnerable.

Jack cranes his neck up to see her. “Something’s wrong, Sam. People are hurting each other. Guys ending up in places they don’t remember. Lou broke Makepeace’s nose in training this morning.”

“They’re training.” Sam scowls. She is so angry all of a sudden.

“We’re commandos, Captain. We flick each other with Ka-Bar knives without doing serious damage. We don’t break noses without intending to. And it’s not just them.”

“So check their physiology.” She glares at a dead plant in her front yard. God, she wants to kick him. Why does he have to sit there like that?

Jack winces uncomfortably. “We did. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t miss something.”

Sam rips a twig off the dead bush. “And _that’s_ why you came here?”

“Yes.” Jack breathes. “Finding you tends to help with the not missing stuff.”

“Get away from me.” She throws the twig in his general direction and backs up.

“Sam!” Jack winces and reminds himself not to stand. “I know you’re mad at me. You have every right to be.”

“You assaulted me.” She glares.

“No. Not intentionally.” His breath shakes. “But I let you down. I want you to be mad, Sam. I hated you trying to bury it. I failed you. I’m sorry.”

Sam freezes and stares at her dead bush. He’s not supposed to talk like this. They’re not supposed to talk about this. “It’s nothing.”

“I should have been able to stop him. It was bad command accountability on my part. You know that.” Jack rolls his head back at the pain. “I could have stopped him somehow from taking you, from selling you. You deserve better. Be mad, Sam.”

She doesn’t answer.

“I’m trying to do it right now. I need you to see that. I could be right.”

Sam hears her own teeth grind. He could be right. That’s the problem with all her ideas, of kicking him and leaving it all behind. Because he could be right about the base. About her base. She wants to kick him. “What do you want from me?”

Jack rubs his neck sorely. “Come back with me. We’re meeting about it. You’re the only one that remembers anything.”

She breaks another twig in half and then in half again. “Where’s your taxi?”

Jack cranes his head back as his leg twinges. “Cleaning out my mud at the service station down the road.” He’s expending a lot today in more ways that one.

“You can walk back. I’m calling my own.” Sam throws away what’s left of the leaves in her hands. “This is not me endorsing this explanation!”

“Understood.” Jack limps to his feet as she slams the door in his face.


	5. We Need To

“This is my fault, General.” The young man’s knee wobbles under his sodden BDUs. “I should have assessed priorities better and assigned a more experienced security detail. If you allow us to go back to searching—”

“Colonel O’Neill called to say he’s coming back in.” General Hammond frowns at the filthy Security Forces lieutenant and his thirty airmen who’ve spent the last six hours chasing a black ops colonel through Cheyenne Mountain State Park. Several of them are making a show of patting down Captain Carter and examining a well-worn survival knife.

The lieutenant deflates visibly. “Yes, General. I understand I failed this exercise, but I assure you I’ll have overhauled training plans submitted by this evening.”

“Take the night, Lieutenant. Dismissed. All of you.” He waves the guards off Captain Carter, who hasn’t breathed since the airmen started touching her again.

Colonel Makepeace waits impatiently as the door of their private conference room clicks closed. “So this is over then?”

Sam unclenches her sore jaw. “Colonel O’Neill said we’re meeting over a suspected psychological incursion situation.”

The Marine rolls his eyes. “Of course he did. General, I need you to approve these response protocols by end-of-day. We have actual work to do here.”

Hammond rebukes his sole remaining colonel. “This _is_ actual work. We’ll give it its due.”

Sam’s brow furrows. “New response protocols?” She shifts uncomfortably. “The next review isn’t until Monday.”

The Marine turns on her irritably. “Do you want me to point out that you’re a junior captain with zero battlefield commands thus far, who’s working for a washed-up and currently suspended CO? Or did you want the part where you’re confined to quarters for suspected murderous hallucinations?” He drops his stack of files on the table. “Some of us are still doing the work of the planet, and I think the response protocols need updating.”

Sam lets the insults and Hammond’s rebuke blow past silently. A week spent staring at her living room table, she hadn’t thought of it. She’s benched the most experienced black ops commander they have in the midst of a galactic war. Sidelined him indefinitely, destroyed his reputation. Of course Makepeace would jump at the chance to shape the war his way.

And anything he does is her fault.

Only it’s not, because Sam knows what happened. She does. Her CO assaulted her, just like Turgun. _Exactly_ like Turgun. She trusted him, and he let her get…or he actually…  

Sam shakes her head visibly, but it won’t leave. That must be the real reason she wanted to come back. She _wants_ O’Neill to be right about this lame insanity defense. She’d prefer that the entire base is in grave danger. What kind of officer is she?

Sam’s heart rate spikes again as the door behind her opens and that smell enters. Mud and sweat mixed with blood, and the overwhelming scent that’s haunted her sleepless nights for a week.

Hammond and Makepeace are still arguing. He is now too.

“I’ve got dozens of guys out there right now, Jack! You can’t just make yourself feel better by calling them psycho killers because they don’t remember getting a nosebleed!”

O’Neill has collapsed in a chair. He looks more beat than Sam has ever seen him. Which doesn’t make sense. With all the training they do, a twenty-five kilometer evasion is a pretty simple warm up even on a concussion and groin contusion. He looks like he came off a three-day running firefight and Ferretti making him do the mock ceasefire negotiations in Spanish. Only he was happier after that one.

Jack sighs while forcing himself to sit straight. “It’s not just that, Rob.”

“You’re going to run down the list of papercuts and toothaches again?” Makepeace slams the table. “You ever think the reason we’re getting a little antsy is because you’re driving us nuts?! Not to mention we’re doing your work for you!”

Jack levers himself onto his muddy gym shoes. “We need to listen to her.”

“ _Listen to her?!_ ” Makepeace physically shoves Jack away from his 2IC. “You realize you dragged your _own subordinate_ down here against her will to relive the way she thinks you assaulted her and how it reminds her of the time you let her get serially raped by a barbarian warlord?! Are you even capable of thinking of anyone but yourself anymore?”

General Hammond steps in between the two men. “Captain Carter, did you have something you wanted to say? We’d all like to _sit down_ and listen to it.” He emphasizes the point like a grade school principal to his Marine commander.

Sam is staring at a scuff on the carpet. “Actually, if you don’t mind, General, I could use a break.”

George feels his eyebrows jump. “Yes…of course. Thank you for asking.” It may be the first time she’s ever done that.

Sam looks around clumsily before moving. She reaches for the doorknob and then remembers the anxious guards perched readily on the other side. “I…could use a little leeway here, sir.”

Hammond studies her for a long moment without comment. He thumbs the button of his speakerphone. “Let’s send Captain Carter’s guards back to work. She won’t be needing them.” The general holds up an impatient hand to quell his Marine colonel’s response.

Jack turns around but doesn’t look at her. “You’re still my 2IC out there as far as anyone is concerned. If you want to be.”

Sam lets the door click closed behind her on the way out.

Makepeace exhales loudly when it does. “Jack, if you’ll excuse us, the General and I have serious work to handle.”

Jack stares at him for a long beat. “You’re enjoying this too much.” He limps over to his office and to start doing nothing again.

Hammond frowns at his Marine leader. “I expect you’d enjoy debating a fellow special ops commander a lot more than satisfying my own novice curiosity, Colonel.” The old pilot’s eyes skim down a long list of questions and warn Makepeace to wipe that smirk off his face.


	6. You Know Me

Sam runs a hand over her grimy hair and straightens the captain’s rank on her freshly laundered fatigues. She’s glad to be back in them, but she just can’t feel comfortable anymore. Not around here. She raises a fist and knocks sharply on the door.

“Enter.”

Sam opens the cubby-hole of an office and waves to pacify the man who jumps to attention inside. “Relax, Lieutenant.”

“Ma’am! Great to have you back.” The lieutenant stands stiffly behind his disheveled desk until his superior takes her seat. “I mean, is something wrong?”

Sam forces an easy smile. “Nothing too bad. How’re ya doing?”

“Outstanding, ma’am.” Lieutenant Kersh sits mechanically on the front third of his chair.

She tilts her head. “Drew?”

He bites at his lip for a minute. “ …I feel like a chew toy.” The young man deflates in front of his friend. “All this week, like two colonels with a hunk of roadkill. He’s been grilling my guys at all hours whenever someone stubs a toe in their patrol area. We’re falling apart. I don’t know what to do for them anymore.”

“I’m really sorry about all this, Drew.” Sam feels way too apologetic about that.

“It’s not your…” The young man trails off and studies her tone nervously. “Ma’am…some people are saying you accused Colonel O’Neill of…” He sighs and stops again. “Not that I listen to what people say. Ma’am.” He fidgets uncomfortably. “So this is really some kind of drill? Do you know if I’m in trouble? Because I’d resign on the spot if it’d protect my guys from—”

“No. It’s nothing about you, Drew.” Sam sighs and pulls back the bandage guarding some very real gouges in her head. “But it’s complicated.”

He winces sharply. “...But you’re back, right, Sam? You’re okay?”

“I’m here.” She reclines with feigned ease. “And I could use a hand on something.”

“Of course! Um, you are officially allowed…” The junior officer shifts uncomfortably.

“It’s legit.” Sam breaks eye contact momentarily. “Still working for Colonel O’Neill if you need to call him.”

“No! That’s…No. What can I do for you?” Her friend smiles too quickly.

“I need to talk to some of your guys.” Sam watches him try to hide a flinch. “Anyone who was on the swing shift before the incident last week.”

Drew’s brow furrows. “Swing shift? That’s hours before it happened. You don’t…you think someone sabotaged the bookshelf? Ma’am, I assure you if my people saw anything they would’ve handled it immediately and reported—”

“I’m not looking for a scapegoat, Drew. You know me.” Sam smiles down his panic again. “I’m just looking to talk.”

The lieutenant breathes out his now-constant jitters. “Yes, ma’am. Everyone should be back in from the search. I’ll tell their shift sergeant. Did you want me to get it on Colonel O’Neill’s schedule?”

“No.” Now it’s Sam’s turn to answer too quickly. “I just need a couple chats in the guard room. Thanks, Drew.” She moves to the door.

“Ma’am?” He waits for her to turn back and then drops his eyes to his disheveled desk. “…What’s going on?”

Sam pauses for too long. “I really wish I knew.” Her eyes trace over his junior rank and the lines etching his grimy face. “But whatever it is, you’re handling it really well.” If only she can start to, too.

 

“Thanks very much, Airman.” Sam holds open the door to let her third interviewee rejoin his friends around their TV.

“Yes, ma’am.” The young guard moves past her awkwardly. “But really I don’t feel like much help with all these questions lately. We just don’t understand it.”

Sam grins easily. “Fortunately that’s my problem, Zayas. Airman Tran, could I get a minute?”

“Yes, ma’am!” The next guard jumps up like training instructors are still biting her head off. “But I should say I wasn’t even on that floor, ma’am. I’m really not sure how I can help.”

Sam holds open the door into the side room. “Were you on shift that night?” The airman’s head bobs obediently. “Then let’s just chat.” Sam lets the door slip closed behind them.


	7. Worried About Everything

Captain Carter sets her jaw as the meeting room door clicks closed. It locks her in with her senior officers once again. “I know that I’m right about what happened last week.”

Colonel Makepeace looks up from his files with a grunt. “Captain, I can appreciate that, but we have hundreds of people here that I can’t just turn on their heads for—”

“I know because I’m not the only one.” Sam squares herself to the Marine commander stiffly.

His objection drops like a stone. Makepeace whips around to where Jack is still limping out of his office. “Arrest him.”

Jack takes his hands out of his pockets and blinks unseeingly. He what?

General Hammond steps around the table. “Who’s hurt, Captain?”

She swallows. “I’m not answering that.”

Makepeace’s eyes snap away from his former colleague’s skull. “You have to; you’re a mandatory reporting commander.”

“Then arrest me too.” Sam finds herself glaring at him.

The Marine huffs. “Look, it’s not that I don’t believe you. But we have no idea who this other person is. We’ve been asking about this all week; we can’t just—”

“That _other person_ is a terrified nineteen-year-old who recently watched _every one_ of her senior officers,” she jabs at them angrily, “kick the ranking female commander _off base_ directly after the assault that _rendered me unconscious_. You wanna talk about why she’d fake this?”

The Marine comes up short and ends up muttering to himself. He turns back to Hammond. “We need to arrest him now, General. Whether we believe his story or not is a different issue.”

Sam watches Hammond nod and almost waits until he’s pushed the intercom button. “General. I won’t name who’s hurt…but I can tell you who did it.”

Jack turns around in confusion from where he’s moved blindly to the door. “It wasn’t me?”

Sam doesn’t bring herself to look at him. “No.” She stares straight forward. “It was you.”

The whole room blinks dumbly as she walks up to the person she’s talking to.

“General.” Sam inhales roughly. “I can’t _know_ that something is very wrong here. But I believe that you can.”

General Hammond looks back grimly. “Damn right.” He pulls in a deep breath. “Colonel Makepeace, you need to take command of the SGC.”

Makepeace has already started talking into the phone. “Command staff is ordering a full and immediate recall of all off-world teams. We are at Condition Delta, and get the infirmary shift commander in here now.” He hangs up sharply. “We’re going to need a cover story until we have a way to handle this. And, General, I can’t have everyone knowing you’re relieved of duty.”

Hammond nods and tries to sound unpreoccupied. “I’ll have a meeting in Washington.”

Makepeace turns back to Jack without pause. “So how do we stop this?”

Jack is already toting an armful of files from his office. “Say that there’s a biologic outbreak from SG-1’s last planet. Humans are only carriers, but we can’t go trotting around anywhere else for now. Put everyone on mission planning rehearsals. I have a priority order for all medical testing across the board. And you know we’ve talked about if this is contagious—”

The Marine stops him cold. “As if the best way to avoid panic right now is to poke needles into everyone’s wives and kids.” He scowls and whips through a thick stack of Jack’s papers. “And I’m not convinced on all these incident maps either. You and Hammond jump people and you’re worried that Lou popped me with too strong a left hook?” He chucks the file away.

Jack takes it back with a yank. “Right now I’m worried about everything. And you’re hardly in a position to object after all the crap you’ve pulled on me this week!”

“Is she okay?”

Their escalating conversation grinds to a halt.

Hammond repeats his question. “The airman, Captain, is she injured?”

Sam rolls her shoulders uneasily. “She has no reportable injuries, sir. I took the liberty of helping her get off duty for the time being. But, General, I have to ask you—”

“I’m not going to try to figure out who it is, Captain.” Not that he has that many nineteen-year-old girls on base.

“Yes, sir.”

Jack and Makepeace exchange looks with each other and try to remember what they were fighting about.

The phone on the table buzzes. “General, Doctor Fraiser is here for you.”

Hammond exchanges a look with Makepeace and then taps the speaker button. “Send her in.”

“General, Colonels, Captain.” Janet looks around and tries to get a read on the room’s tense mood.

Makepeace steps forward brusquely. “Doctor. You’ve been briefed on Colonel O’Neill’s conjecture regarding the incident last week.”

“Of course. But I still have no evidence—”

“He’s right.” The Marine puffs sharply. “What you need to do now is tell me how to stop it.”

Janet looks at the general sitting silently and puts two and two together. “Well unfortunately, Colonel, I’m afraid it doesn’t change much. We still can’t detect anything. It’s quite possible we never will.”

“That is not an acceptable—”

Jack waves down the Marine. “Doctor, let’s assume for a minute that we’re not completely screwed. What’s the next most logical alternative?”

The doctor purses her lips briefly. “That it’s ephemeral.”

Jack nods. “So what does that mean?”

“It means it only temporarily—”

Jack rolls his eyes impatiently. “I know what it _means_ , Doctor. What does it _mean_?”

“It means we need to trigger it.” Sam cuts in to answer his characteristically ineloquent objection. “She needs us to do it again.”

Jack turns around and just stares at his 2IC for a minute. “You and me?”

Sam shrugs stiffly. “You were going to ask for volunteers?”

Jack takes an inadvertent step toward her. “Sam, I almost _killed_ you last time.”

“And _she_ almost killed you.” Makepeace raises his eyebrows.

Sam turns on him too angrily. “I’m in complete control of my use of force, Colonel.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “You are?”

“Yes.” She turns away sharply. She is. Now.

Janet cuts back in. “I’m not sure about that, Captain. It’s entirely possible this will compromise you as well. We have no evidence you’re immune or even that it will take longer.”

Makepeace rubs his temple. “My money is still on the twenty-year commando. And you, Jack? You think you’re going to make the same mistake you did last time?”

Sam gets a shiver up her spine.

Jack fidgets with his hands. “We’ll need to read in some Delta Force guys, and Teal’c. I can’t have a twenty-year-old security detail anymore.”

“You can’t have _any_ security detail anymore.” Janet asserts herself back between the two colonels. “I’m sorry, sir, but whatever triggers this is obviously very volatile. It could be anything from a gust of air to a combination of body odors. You need to recreate as much of your situation as possible, and even then it could take an eternity to catch. That is if you really want to do this.”

Makepeace grimaces. “Not to mention having you shadowed by a team of Delta Force SGers is going to set off some alarm bells.”

Jack rolls his shoulders. “Then they’ll stay hidden. Captain Reid will figure it out somehow.”

Makepeace grunts. “No he won’t, Jack. You need to get realistic here. You know damn well if you want her dead, she’s going to die.”

Jack ends up pacing again. He punches the bandage on his thigh angrily and has to catch the table as it makes his leg collapse. Then he turns to Carter. “You’re really up for this? We could make it safer for you.”

Sam is surprised that she can’t look away from him. “This isn’t about me anymore.”

Jack takes his Iranian knife back from in front of Hammond and studies how the light flicks off its blade. He looks back up at his 2IC. Then he spins the hilt in his hand and plunges it into his bicep. He staggers back against the table.

“Colonel!”

He clamps his hand over his limp arm with gritted teeth. “Then I’m sure you’ll figure out some way to stop me.”

“COLONEL!” Janet scolds him loudly as he waves her off and limps into his office.

“I got it.” He grabs his special ops go bag and sinks onto the floor inside. “Hey, Doc…” He grits his teeth nonchalantly on a strip of gauze. “This ephemeral thing, you’ll still find it if I’m dead?”

Janet’s mouth flaps as she watches him dress his wound one-handed. “Colonel, I could never recommend—”

Jack cranes around her. “Make sure the Delta guys know that, too.”

Makepeace nods back grimly.

Sam misses it. She’s still staring at the blood running off the knife blade and onto the table.


	8. A Thousand Cuts

Sam dismisses her seventh briefing of the day and tries to make small talk with the scientists who stay hovering around like she’ll crumble at any second. No doubt she does look the part, between the stitches still healing on her forehead and the bags always growing under her eyes. She excuses herself saying something about sleep but heads back to her lab.

Three Security Forces airmen rush past her in the corridor trying not to look worried. It’s been getting worse lately, but they’re still trying to keep it quiet. The infirmary just calls them ‘minor incidents’ and ‘misunderstandings’. Pushing someone too hard, shutting a door on a guy’s hand while you’re arguing. Not remembering why your knuckles are bruised. But people are starting to look at each other sideways. It’s splintering the base apart. Death by a thousand cuts.

And everyone looks at her sideways.

Sam opens her lab door and jolts as it squeaks characteristically. She finds a canteen to splash some water on her face. Two weeks like this is far too long.

Two weeks waiting to die.

She grabs a steel pen off her desk and flips it around like a combat knife.

Something in the air moves behind her. Sam’s other hand goes to one of the real knives concealed under her fatigues.

She doesn’t make it.

“Ah-ah, don’t do that. People will see you.” He blocks her pen jab deftly.

Sam lowers it and deflates. “You gave me a heart attack.” She keeps her voice similarly low.

“I gave you a heart attack at least five feet too late. You couldn’t have stopped me while dozing off like that.” Captain Reid reclines next to her at the table.

Sam runs a hand through her unwashed hair. “That’d be more of an insult if you weren’t a Delta Force commander.”

“And O’Neill was the best tactical CO in Brand X.” He hands her an energy bar. “I can hang here a minute. Strengthen up.”

“You really know how to relax a person, you know.” Sam tears at the wrapper. Her hands shake.

“I don’t want you relaxed.” Captain Reid flips open a folder on her desk by way of pretext.

“What do you want?” Sam comes over and tries to look like this is a meeting they normally have.

“I have five guys clandestinely tracking a twenty-year veteran commando across a massive active underground special ops base with constant other incidents going on, while he bolts away in unknown directions and can’t remember what he’s doing when he stops.” Reid gestures as if they’re talking about something nonlethal. “Every minute of every day for the past two weeks. O’Neill is getting more and more erratic. And somehow I’m supposed to stay close enough to you while you keep running all over doing—”

“My job?” Sam gestures too sharply. “You’re not supposed to be tailing me, Reid. We have no idea who he’s going to attack.”

The soldier drops his facade for a second. “Every time he breaks away, he guns in your direction. It’s getting worse. He’s getting farther.”

Sam shivers and hopes the Delta Force leader doesn’t notice. “You haven’t told me what you want.”

He goes back to faking a smile. “This needs to stop. And you need to stop moseying around with the geeks and go hang out in a room full of commandos with combat knives.”

“Because that’d seem normal.” Sam smiles sweetly. “You do understand that I’m trying to handle the full technological investigation here without telling anyone, right? Not to mention I couldn’t change your mission assignment if I wanted to.”

“Actually, you can.” Reid chuckles over a scowl. “You’re the commander of this little experiment now. Makepeace delegated it about twenty minutes ago. He’s...busy.”

Sam glances at the door. “Something else happened?”

“Some people were...compromised.” Reid shakes it off. “It’s time to handle this directly. Your way hasn’t worked for two weeks, and I need my guys back in my control. Either call it off—”

“No.” She shakes her head with its fake smile. “This is still the best approach. Makepeace wouldn’t have put me in command over you if he wanted you to end it.”

Reid grimaces at getting caught. “Would he have wanted to you take counsel from the Delta Force commander with quintuple your ground warfare commands and two years longer in captain’s rank?”

Sam lets herself look chagrin. “I’m listening.”

Reid sighs and resets his expression. “My guys who were covering you here an on Level 27 are in the infirmary. One of them is Teal’c.”

Sam’s facade drops. “Are they okay?”

“No.” He swallows roughly. “I just found them each at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and neither has no idea who pushed him.”

Sam rubs her neck and puts down the energy bar. “I’m so sorry.” O’Neill managed to get the jump on _Teal’c_?

He sighs. “I’m trying to keep the wheels on this thing, Sam, but it can’t work this way. O’Neill is the most frequently sporadic guy on base by far. We need to lock him up and move your desk to the combatives gym so you’re always surrounded by multiple highly trained weapons sergeants who can kill each other as needed.”

She shakes her head more firmly. “The worst-case person is still our best chance to pin this down. You know that. Everyone else is still too minor.” Too unlikely to kill her. Sam turns and lets her gaze linger around the lab. “Tony...your guys know that they don’t have to reach me in time, right? They’re protecting everyone, not me. They just need to keep drawing his blood until we get something. Don’t compromise that for my sake.”

Reid studies her for a long minute. “Delta Force doesn’t lose. Just stay in one spot as much as you can. …Do your job.” He closes the folder he’s been pretending to reference in front of the video cameras. “And hey, O’Neill hurt himself again. Stabbed his right thigh this time, can barely walk unless he’s going nuts. And I think he may have given himself a new concussion after he ended up outside the women’s bathroom. Kind of a mess, actually. Hope that isn’t what’s screwing up the blood tests.”

Sam starts inconspicuously twiddling that steel pen to practice nonlethal jabs in the right thigh. She scarfs the rest of Reid’s energy bar with her free hand. She stays there fiddling for a while.

 

Something jars Sam back from the fantasy of sleep. Her eyes sweep the empty room frightenedly as she grabs up the phone and realizes that’s what’s ringing. “Carter. Yes, yes, sir.” So much for staying in one place.

Sam sets off at a jog for Makepeace’s War Room and comes up against her ever-present stairs-versus-elevator dilemma. And there’s no one watching her back now. For all she knows Reid himself is lying at the bottom of the stairs somewhere. But she can’t have this happen trapped in an elevator. Sam finds a security guard to talk to, and he follows her into the elevator automatically. At least Lieutenant Kersh’s guys have learned not to ask what the hell is wrong with her, or not to their superior’s face anyway.

She leaves Airman Zayas on Level 17 and jogs to the War Room entrance. The hand she raises to knock on it is jerked backward. Sam topples sideways into a darkened room. The lights don’t flicker enough to see as she fights for her innocuous steel pen. The rest is a blur.


	9. Splinter Group

Jack stays naturally still as he comes to, the way he has every time since his first month in an Iraqi prison cage. The beeping in familiar, as is his posture. The smells come back. Infirmary?

He bolts out of bed and collapses on the floor. “CARTER!” One leg tries to stand again and crashes back onto his knee. “Carter!! Goddammit, SAM!” He reaches to crawl forward blindly and realizes his arms are restrained backward to the bed. “No, Sam!”

“Sir, relax.” A figure kneels down in front of him.

His collapses on the floor. “S…I thought you...I thought I...”

“I’m fine, sir.” Sam keeps her distance but feels kind of bad for it.

Jack cranes to look up in the glaring light. “I thought I…” His voice peters out as he squints. Memories of smashing that face flood back to him.

“I’m fine.” She sounds more relieved than reassuring.

Two of her teeth are missing. Her right eye socket is swollen out of size, and the bruises with his fingerprints extend down her neck. If Jack saw a woman who looked like that in any other circumstance, he’d kill the guy nearest her just on principle. “Carter…” His head hangs back on the floor.

“I’m okay, sir. Teal’c and Reyes will be out of bed in a few days. That’s the worst of it. We’re fine.”

He swallows wearily. “Tell me it’s over.”

Sam pauses. “We’ve got it.”

Jack looks up and pulls into a vaguely sitting position. “What’s that mean?”

She sighs. “We know what it is now, but we don’t know how to get rid of it. We still haven’t found the source.”

Jack levers to his knees and realizes that he recently got the crap kicked out of him. “Let’s go.”

The doctor waiting above them both shoots him an incredulous look. “And just where do you think you’re going, Colonel?”

Jack straightens and turns to the diminutive power monger. “I assume the incident maps are laid out in the War Room. We need to find this thing. Either let me go or put me in a padded cell.”

Janet huffs unsatisfactorily. “The pathogenic fungus has been undetectable in your bloodstream for almost twenty-four hours, Colonel. You’re no more a threat than you always are. But we’ve also been working with your physiology for most of that time, and you’re in no condition to move.”

Jack waves his arms and tries to not look as unsteady as he feels. “I will be when you take the ropes off.”

“Which will be at least forty-eight hours from now if you insist on trying to leave.” Janet crosses her arms over her stethoscope. “You understand we should be detaining you until this is over.”

An authoritative voice cuts in on their debate. “We need him. He’s free to go.”

Janet turns around sharply. “You can’t—”

Makepeace cuts her off again. “We  _ need _ him, Doctor. How many new patients do you get in here every day from this thing?” He gestures impatiently. “Let’s go, all of you. We’re stopping this now.”

 

Jack makes it all the way to the conference table before collapsing on a chair. Ow. He musters the energy to raise his head around the room. “Oh...damn.”

Makepeace sighs and rubs his neck. “Yeah. We can’t confirm every incident, but it’s definitely getting worse. Dozens in the past two days. Everything from brief overreactions to guys sporting bruises to discovering people unconscious. We have no pattern for the times or locations.” He waves at the maps strewn across the walls.

“But we do for the people.” Daniel looks up disheveledly from behind a pile of folders. “Aggressors appear to be targeting threats and potential allies that increase their social power as well as provide access to favored mates.” He rushes the words out in a jumble. “The infirmary and anthropology liaisons think this fungus is specifically targeted to regress advanced humans into lower neocortical ratios by targeting our neomammalian complex.”

Jack picks out the syllables of that he’s going to try to understand. “You think we’re being attacked by a biological weapon meant to turn us into monkeys?”

Janet steps forward. “Not necessarily attacked, Colonel. This may well be a feral bioengineered organism meant for some other planet. A fungus like this would be a clever way for a Goa’uld to capture any advanced civilization, both exposing its valuable technology and turning its gene pool into a host breeding ground.”

“Clever.” Jack scratches at the cast on his arm. “But tell me, Doctor, wouldn’t it need to be  _ permanent _ to do that?”

Janet pauses for the first time. “Yes, it would. And it may be. After repeated exposures, your episodes are lasting longer. Everyone’s are...but you’re the furthest along. Understand that it’s happening only at the epigenetic level, so it may be reversible no matter what. But this does appear to be moving us back evolutionarily, at least to the original splinter group that formed the catarrhine clade. We’ve all experienced it now.”

Jack looks down and taps the table with a bandaged hand. “And do we know why Carter’s immune?”

“I’m not.” Sam speaks uncomfortably through her missing teeth. “In fact I think I only lasted a few seconds after you did this time before I...surrendered.”

She says that word like it’s her fault. Jack stares dumbly at her before realizing he shouldn’t do that. He knocked two of her teeth out when she wasn’t even fighting him?

Sam doesn’t return the eye contact.

Jack exhales and looks around the projector and wall maps again. Every level of the base and beyond is dotted with dozens and dozens of multicolored pins. People, his people, splintering apart and attacking each other a dozen times a day. “Do we know why I’m the worst case?”

“No.” Makepeace huffs impatiently. “But I hope it gives you some kind of insight, because I’m fresh out. And unfortunately I have a call with the Joint Chiefs now.”

Jack watches the Marine’s shadow cross over the projected maps as he heads for the door. Something in the back of Jack’s brain buzzes. He shakes his head at the pain. “...Wait.”

The Marine turns around in the harsh light. “I’ve discovered the Joint Chiefs don’t like doing that.”

“No, the…” Jack gets up and waves his hand over where Makepeace walked across the projector. Over and over again. “It’s the...my office does that, too.”

He gets a set of raised eyebrows.

Jack grabs the Air Force flagpole from its stand like a staff weapon.

Sam jumps six feet backward. “Sir?!”

He spins and jams it at the ceiling. “Come on, come on.” His head is on fire.

Sam steadies herself on the far side of the table and looks up at her CO jabbing the projector. “It’s the...it’s the light?”

It starts flickering.

Jack pivots around unsteadily.

Daniel immediately knocks the files off his desk with a subhuman roar.

Janet jumps away from him. “In retrospect that seems like it was a bad idea.”

Makepeace launches himself between the two civilians. “Ya think?!” He throws Daniel to the ground and spins around, still in control of himself. For now.

Sam’s own head is throbbing. She squints as Colonel O’Neill turns on her fierily.

“Close your eyes!” Janet already has hers closed as she yells, but she feels Makepeace turn on her. “Colonel?” She opens them again. “Colonel! Close your eyes!” She ducks under the table as the Marine loses control and launches at her.

Sam clamps her eyes closed and rushes her CO. That’s going to make this a lot harder. Her head is on fire. She makes solid contact with his sling before jamming a pen into his bandaged leg.

Behind her someone else howls. Makepeace throws the massive conference table Janet is under into the air. The room goes dim as it hits the flickering projector.

Janet kicks him in the groin. The Marine kicks her back in the head and hurls a chair across the room.

Sam stomps on O’Neill as he collapses and then narrowly dodges a chair flying at her head. What’s left of her trained brain scrounges for a solution before it explodes or Makepeace kills her.

The Marine takes another chair but this time slams it on his own skull. He falls against the wall and stares at her starkly. “GO!”

Sam blinks through the fiery haze at the briefly clear-eyed Marine. Then she sees Doc Fraiser lying bleeding from the head. She punches him clean in his broken nose.

The Marine slumps to the ground as Sam hauls the doctor over her shoulder. She’s not going to make it much longer as she collapses them both against the door.

Someone’s trying to get in. Probably fifty someones. They’re slamming on the door and trying to override the War Room code. She gropes for the button and holds down the intercom. “Cut main base power, red light backup only. Go to MOPP Level 3, tinted gas mask inserts.” She tries to think harder and collapses in a heap against the door release.

The security guards hear it buzz open from the other side. Their lieutenant slams a hand forward to keep it closed. “STOP!”

“Sir?! You said this was real!” The point man waves urgently. Someone roars carnally through the door. “And if Captain Carter is compromised she can’t order—”

Lieutenant Kersh’s mind races over the last three weeks. “ _ I’m  _ ordering!” He yells over the blaring alarms and keys his radio. Moments later they burst into the room in gas masks, and before they’ve left the entire base is tinted with red lights.


	10. Not an Option

Daniel twitches away from the sting and rolls over. Next time he buries deeper into his pillow. Another prick. He finally swats through hooded eyelids. “What the…” An M&M hits him in the nose.

“I don’t think that’s an authorized wake up codeword, Danny Boy.”

Daniel squints and reaches around for his glasses. “Jack?”

“Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Daniel bolts up, tugging the wires taped to him. “The thing...it’s the...it’s the…”

“Lights. Flickering, to be exact, at some...frequencies.” Jack waves a bandaged hand abstractly and chucks another M&M at his friend.

“Would you stop doing that?” Daniel scrubs his eyes again.

Jack shrugs. “Fraiser said wake you up to eat.”

Daniel jerks around again. “Janet! She was—”

“I’m fine.” The doctor looks up from checking Sam’s vitals. She’d seem like she’s on call if she wasn’t sporting a hospital gown and bandages.

Daniel’s mouth hangs open as he sees her cloth-wrapped head. “Did I do that?”

“Unfortunately not.” Colonel Makepeace’s voice emerges out from between his and Jack’s beds.

Daniel sits up fully to see him. He’s on the floor doing pushups despite his own bandaged face. “Did I do _that_?”

The Marine looks up incredulously. “Doubtful.”

Sam winces and hides behind Janet for a second too long. “Colonel, you probably don’t remember the situation...”

The Marine sends a stern look up at her and pauses in the up position. “I was in full control at the time, Captain. I told you to go. In fact, I recall beating myself in the head to get you out, and yet here I am having been assaulted by a junior officer.”

Sam swings over the edge of the bed to feel more in control. “I was unsure if your control would last long enough fully resolve the situation, sir.”

Makepeace’s scowl tugs on his bandage. He glares at her for far too long. “Pretty good left hook. You get that from Ferretti?” He smirks and restarts his pushups.

Sam deflates and bumps her IV stand. “He’s offered some advice for my Level Four tests, sir.”

Daniel pokes at one of his IV lines. “Okay, so does anyone know how I got run over by a truck?” He tries to stretch his sore...everything.

“That one really was my pleasure, Doc.” Makepeace’s head keeps bobbing near the floor. “Thank me later. But most of what you’re feeling is the vaccination. Works, but some weird side effects.”

Daniel tries to roll his shoulders again and looks back at Jack’s newly bandaged head. “So I guess I hit you then?”

“No.” Sam doesn’t look up from her laptop this time as she interjects.

Jack fidgets with his M&Ms silently.

Daniel’s brow furrows. “Then did I do anything to anybody?”

Jack looks up with a smirk and pops another M&M in his mouth. “What answer would make you feel better?”

“As interesting as this all is, folks…” General Hammond waves them all down from the doorway as the officers suddenly realize he’s there and straighten up. “I’d really like my command staff back now.”

“Yes, sir.” Jack swings his feet over the bed eagerly. Janet glares at him. He ignores it. “What can we do for you?”

General Hammond steps into the center of their beds. “Everyone is vaccinated. The mold has infested our HVAC system as well, though, and we’re keeping everyone as segmented as possible until we’ve confirmed it’s clear. You all have your supervisory assignments.” He passes folders to the three command officers. “We need to know what’s happened. Any resources or information that may have been compromised, exactly what incidents have occurred.” He hands Captain Carter her folder and lingers too long.

Sam silently orders herself to maintain eye contact.

He turns back to address everyone. “But that’s not the key imperative. Let’s put this place back together, folks. Disunity is not an option here.” Hammond turns back to the captain again too stiffly. “Captain Carter, you understand you’re the ranking female line [command] officer on base. However, fortunately Colonel Moretti is available at Peterson if you think—”

“This is my job, General. I’m fine.” She turns to Janet pointedly. “Right, Doctor?”

Janet checks the bag on her IV line. “You can go. I’d like to see you in a few hours, though.”

“Rest assured you’ll be seeing much more of me than that, Doctor.” Sam eyes her colleague's injuries meaningfully.

Janet grimaces but keeps freeing the captain from her IV line.

 

Janet knows she should be talking more during this. She is the doctor after all, and she did a psychiatry rotation plus more as an emergency medicine fellow.

But the women in this room don’t want a doctor. They don’t want to be patients; they want to stay soldiers. They want their officer. And Sam is still clearly that, despite symbolically doffing her jacket when she joined the circle. They want the commander who can win knife fights on other planets to tell them it’s all okay. That they can still be warriors. Or at least they can act like them during this, for the sixty-year-olds hunched forward in their lab coats and the teenagers who haven’t yet grown into their BDUs. They want to know that the crazy story their general told them won’t completely destroy everything they’re barely adjusting to about a universe they’ve only known exists for a few months.

And Janet can’t tell them that.

So she watches Captain Carter talk, throwing in the odd supportive word when available. She adds more when the conversation steers into fears of inheritable genetics. She talks for a while about spores and neocortexes, until Sam gently pulls her back as the words grow too intimidating for kids shaking in their newly-issued boots. It’s only then that Janet realizes she missed the subtle coughs from a handful of sergeants in the room.

Janet just can’t get used to this day. It’s like she didn’t wake up from the nightmare. She knows why, of course—she’s a doctor—but it doesn’t help erase being attacked by a massive Marine-turned-saadaniidae as she cowers under a table. It doesn’t tell her how to behave around him. Around a base full of dangerous men like him. It doesn’t tell her how to sleep again. She throws in another supportive word and tries to stop touching her bandaged head.

 

Jack knows he shouldn’t be doing it, but he can’t sit still. He’s babysitting the skeleton crew that’s cleaning up on this shift. Which means there’s nothing to do. They’re too busy to talk and, with nothing wrong and no off-world missions, too bored to be interesting. So he’s walking in circles, ostensibly checking in on the security guards he’s been harassing constantly for the last three weeks. He thanks someone again and keeps walking.

 

Captain Carter stands up as the group dissipates and then talks to a few people individually. No one really wants to talk yet, except Sam. That one Janet can explain. It’s not the first time she’s watched COs use their people’s problems to ignore their own. And SG-1’s number-two commander is a powerful figure in these parts, so women linger around her even without wanting to talk. Sam stays for too long before making her way to the door with a reminder for the follow-up sessions tomorrow morning.

Janet isn’t quite sure why she follows. “Nice job.”

The captain shrugs on her jacket as they walk. “You were pretty quiet. How’s it going?”

Janet smiles. “You want to shrink my head now too?”

“Well, I figured if I beat you to it.” Sam finally lets the yawn escape her jaw. “Long couple weeks.”

Janet misses the end of that as Colonel O’Neill rounds a corner down the hall. He freezes stiffly. Janet looks back at Sam, who’s contentedly pushing the button for the elevator. “Right, yeah.” Janet peers back down the corridor.

O’Neill waves her off frantically and disappears around the corner with more tumult than the commando typically exhibits.

Janet turns back to her fellow officer and blinks. “Hey, uh, you want to get some decaf or something?” She smiles into her segue. “Seems like you don’t have many people to talk to.” Janet winces at the awkwardness of that comment.

“I’m really not…” Sam sighs as the elevator opens. “Yeah, coffee would be great.”

 

Jack leans his concussed head against the cool concrete and listens to the elevator close around the corner. He’s glad she’s talking to someone. It’s good. Someone that’s not him.

Not that that’s why he’s been wandering around aimlessly all shift.

Jack resists the urge to thump his bandaged skull on the wall. He has to talk to her. He knows he does. Just, you know. Not now.

She should be talking to Janet. They’re...more similar. And she has a lot of work to do. Not a great couple weeks for the handful of women on base.

And Jack should really give her some time. Just to calm down, you know. Not that he really has any read on her current mood. Maybe she needs to calm up. Or...sideways.

He fixes the sling on his arm and turns away to pace some more.


	11. I Needed You

Sam jerks from her pushup position into a crouch at the knock on the door. “I kept it open, Janet.” The doctor had recommended it with some psychological mumbo-jumbo. Sam still thinks it’s a monumentally stupid idea.

The door creaks as it opens. “Hey, uh, it’s me. Just wanted to check in.” Jack sticks his head halfway in. He gets no response. “So…it’s good Fraiser is around. You know, that’s, it must make it easier.” Is he supposed to say that?

Sam finally inhales and steps into the hallway.  She keeps his old knife strapped against the small of her back. It’s a comfort thing. “Easier to rebandage my head?”

“No, I…” Jack has to wait for his mouth to flap. “Is it still bad?” He scratches at his wrist brace.

“I’m fine.” She kneads the knuckles on her taped hand. “What do you want?”

He fidgets in the doorway. “Just to check if I can do anything. Been a long week off.” He breathes.

Sam sighs. Not nearly long enough. “Come in. I think I have your knife around here somewhere.” She pivots without actually turning away from him, keeping the knife behind her.

Jack isn’t quite sure how to take that. “You should keep it. I want you to be comfortable...er.” He stays outside the door.

“I doubt the windscreen is going to save me if you want to kill me, sir. Come inside.”

Jack flinches. “You can take me on pretty well these days.” He tries to smile but winces at the threshold creaks under his crutch. “You really don’t need to let me in.” Though it feels more like an ambush zone than an invasion. He stops on the threshold again. He really shouldn’t be doing this to her. He’s been remembering more lately. He’s probably not the only one. But for her sake, he hopes he is. “I just wanted to apologize again.”

“Oh?” Sam shifts weight onto her good hip as she stands in the hallway.

“Yeah.” Jack fidgets. She’s staking him out like a local intruder in their campground. It looks pretty innocuous. One of many things that’s making her into a good armed diplomat. “And I’m sorry it took so long for me to come get you. I should have thought of it as soon you said what I did to you that night. I would next time. I mean if you decide to stay.”

Sam shifts her weight further subconsciously. “You want me to quit?”

“No, but I’d understand if you wanted to. There are plenty of great command opportunities for you outside SG-1.” Jack sighs. His 2IC looks good now. Strong. Healing and…covertly pissed.

“You didn’t used to want me here.” Sam shrugs and twiddles a pen between her bandaged fingers.

Jack avoids the stitches as he scrubs his hair. “That was before I knew who you were. Which I should have. I’m sorry about that too.”

Sam shrugs. “Then why did you pick me?”

“Because you’re probably the last best hope of humankind?” He chuckles nervously.

“No, I mean why did you _pick_ me?” Sam corrects it with innocuous curiosity.

Jack’s mouth flaps.

Sam steps onto her good leg. “General Hammond went after one of the youngest women on base. You went after one of the oldest, and by far the one most likely to hurt you.” She falters despite herself. “Why was it always me?”

Jack’s eyes widen as the fear sneaks through her voice.

“Oh. I mean I, most guys, find you—” Wait, _was_ he the only one?

“Rape isn’t about sex, Colonel.”

It’s a blunt knock, and Jack stumbles. “Right, I wasn’t—I mean obviously yes it was…” Okay, now she’s obviously mad. “Just that for me, for that thing, it wasn’t—” Jack puffs out a breath. “Never mind.” He glances down at his sneakers. This went well.

“I think you were trying to prove a point.”

The hair on the colonel’s neck goes up, but he wishes it wouldn’t. “…What point is that?”

Sam shrugs again, feeling the knife tucked against the small of her back. “Dominance.”

“ _What?_ ”

She stakes out her position in the corridor. “Rape is about power. You’re far from the first person to think I’m out of my place as a special ops 2IC.”

Jack’s eyes blink repeatedly. “I...you think I what?”

“You think I don’t belong here. Right?”

“Captain, you know—”

“You’ve shown as much before. You can say so.” Sam fists her hand around the pen. “You’re hardly the first commando to smack me down for butting in on the experts.”

“You’re here because that’s what we need right now.” Jack can’t get his eyebrows back down. “Captain, you’re a great leader and now 2IC to a bird colonel. If I didn’t want you, you’d have been sitting on the next red-eye to D.C. next to Samuels. My job isn’t to keep you down, it’s to make you better.”

“Then _why_?”

Jack breathes. Carter doesn’t like problems she can’t solve, and he doesn’t have a better answer. It’s a predicament he’s really tried to avoid. “I don’t know. Maybe I just want too much for that not to be the reason.” He shivers involuntarily.

Sam stumbles on that despite herself. “So you do think I ought to be here.”

For some reason it takes that long Jack to realize what she’s getting at. “I didn’t say that.”

Sam huffs.

“Captain.” He sighs. “I know you’re not ready for this. I’d much rather recruit you after your third tour running Earth black ops teams on multiple continents, but we don’t have that luxury. And you know that.” Jack steps toward her carefully. “Sam…I do _want_ you to be mad at me. But at some point you’ll need to be mad about the thing you're actually mad about.”

“You think I should be mad that you knocked out two of my teeth?” She jabs at the yellowing bruises around her newly fixed mouth.

“Do you think you should be?” Jack doesn’t stutter on it this time. “I’m fine either way. But you don’t need to pretend that I think you’re a screwup as an excuse to leave. The fact that I’m one myself has been plenty reason for everyone else.”

Sam shoves her bandaged hand up against the wall. She wants to kick him again, but this time he doesn’t look nearly as vulnerable. “Just get out.”

“Okay.” Jack makes to turn to the door. “Look, I didn’t just want to apologize. I wanted to thank you too. I don’t think anyone has done that enough. You took huge risks trying to figure this out and bigger ones waiting for me to kill you. For the base, for those women, for everyone. We really appreciate it.” He counts to five looking at the doorknob. “Bye.”

Sam stares quizzically at one of the dents in her living room wall. He’s leaving. That’s what she wanted, right? …Now what?

Jack fiddles with the doorknob silently for another five seconds, trying to form another backup plan.

Sam’s eyes drift to his shadow for a minute. He’s the only one who’s ever come here of his own volition. She squints at the dirt on her carpet. He’s the only one who listened. “You were right.”

Jack casts a careful look over his shoulder. “Oh?”

Sam finally glances up. She shouldn’t tell him this. “About the flashbacks. You were right.”

Jack nods and lets himself turn back around against the doorframe. “From experience.” He deflates. “I’m sorry. It’s one of those things special ops captains learn to handle at your age. It’s how we all become such well-adjusted commanders a couple years later.”

Sam’s eyes dart to him and she can’t help but smirk at the half-smirk on her CO’s face.

“Look, Sam. I know I’m not what you’d call well-adjusted, and I’m not even really good at my job lately. But I’ve been here—places like it. And I do care.” Jack takes the risk of cocking his head into a smile. “Be as pissed as you want, work wherever you want. But I’m around if that’s worth anything.” He wants it to be.

Sam drops her eyes down to her pen as it spins around her fingers. Faster and faster. “You’d still trust me? With the flashbacks.”

“We’d deal with it.” Jack steps in a little to hear her. “Not my first rodeo.”

The pen flies out of Sam’s hands. She breathes out raggedly. “I really wasn’t in control the first time.”

Jack nods simply. “I know.”

She blinks. “And I could’ve killed you.” She goes back to staring at the wall.

“Yeah.”

Sam looks at him for a long beat until she can’t stop the tear breaking down her cheek. “And I don’t really know what you did to me.”

Jack nods solemnly. “I know.”

She squints past him, freeing another tear accidentally. “You know I could’ve ruined your life.”

“I don’t think it would’ve come to that.”

“You don’t know that.” Sam swipes at the wetness around her nose. “I could’ve been crazy.”

Jack has ended up closer to her than he expected. “But you weren’t.”

She steps back. “But I could have been.”

“But you weren’t.” He leans backward with a shrug.

Sam goes back to staring at a dent in her wall for a long minute. “Thank you.”

“You know it’s pronounced ‘screw you’.”

She hiccups damply. “For coming back to get me back out of here.” Sam wipes at her eyes and straightens up. “You didn’t need to deal with that on top of everyone else. You could've left me here through it.” He could’ve left her behind a lot longer than that.

Jack’s face morphs to a quizzical look. “I needed you.”

Her head shakes. “You didn’t really know that.”

“Yes, I did.” He leans in as she downcasts her eyes again. “And thank you.” Jack waits for her to look back. “For being the person that I could come get.”

Sam feels herself blush as she scratches at the wall for a minute. “Why did you believe it?”

Jack looks at the wall himself for a minute, trying to remember his long day escaping the base. “The same reason you believed me, I guess. I needed to.”

Sam finally looks up at him determinedly. “Well, I guess that’s a start.”


End file.
